Can you talk to me about anything else you’ve learned about UT-Dallas?
I would really love for D26 to apply to this school. They offer a major that seems just right for her on paper (Media Arts and Design), it seems to be filled with nerdy kids (her kind of people), and not insignificantly, they offer a full ride including travel abroad stipend for national merit – which she will get.
They don’t have football or marching band, but they do have a pep band for men’s and women’s basketball – and volleyball? – games. Plus they have the usual wind ensembles and such.
The freshman dorms are fantastic – all single bedrooms in a suite of three students with shared bathrooms. They even have three sinks, and shower and toilet are each in separate little rooms.
Another big plus for us is that if D22 gets it together and takes the GRE this semester, she will apply to UT-Dallas for grad school. (Most other schools on her list don’t require the GRE, so she’s perfectly capable, just dragging her feet.) It would be a huge plus for D26 to be near her sister if that somehow ends up working out.
Here are the cons I’ve heard – it’s heavily a commuter school, and there isn’t a huge amount of school spirit. I don’t know if this is still true?
It’s heavily South Asian. This isn’t a con in itself – I am South Asian, and D26 is of mixed ethnicity, but she’s white passing. I’m slightly concerned about her feeling shunned or isolated in that environment.
If you visit in October, I’d really love to hear your impressions! We can’t get out there anytime soon.
Yep, that happened to me to when I ran the NPC on what is still my D26’s first choice. I was shocked to see a number that was far above the cost of attendance; I didn’t even know what that meant (I actually had to ask here!) Still, it was worth a try!
Unfortunately, the calculators are not at ALL consistent from college to college -even when they are the same ‘level’ of competitiveness. I’ve run a lot of NPC -and they are widely different in even what they consider ‘meets need’
I don’t mind the mail as much (recycling goes out on Thursdays here, so getting the next batch ready!), but it’s the email clog that’s insane. It’s just too easy for every school around to just pop out an email to see what sticks. So… many… unsubscribes!
D26 has gotten phone calls from schools that she has never (intentionally) shown interest in?!
I really do not like that. Feels a bit stalker-ish. Like most her age group- she doesn’t answer calls from unknown numbers (rarely answers from numbers that she does recognize ) so has not been that big of a deal.
I could see ‘possibly’ from schools that she has shown direct interest in and has had open communication with. But I just don’t like it!!!
I actually suggested to my D26 to put my phone number for any college thing that required it so that this doesn’t happen. So, of course, I also get spam text messages now too. Luckily most schools that she requested info from doesn’t require a phone number, but a few did for tours.
She’s planning to use her own on the Common App, though. But she really didn’t want the marketing texts or calls.
I’m hoping that their tour calendar will open up for October at some point. Currently, it shows nothing available for in person tours on the date that we’d likely be able to go.
My daughter liked seeing the suites of single rooms. It’s hard to be able to tell the vibe of a school sometimes when you’re just using online means of sleuthing things out.
If it is a big commuter school, that could be a bit of a concern for my kid because she’d be attending from out of state and won’t have a car for year 1 or 2. She’s really introverted and, honestly, I worry occasionally that she’ll just hibernate in her room all the time except for going to class and going to eat (that’s what D24 did most of freshman year).
For us, UTD won’t be completely free; D26 isn’t national merit. But I expect it’ll still be affordable depending on what sort of merit they might award. We’ll have to see. However, the TX in-state tuition for that school is higher than our AZ in-state tuition.
My D26 would fit in well on a campus full of nerdy kids, though, and is looking for a community of people in college where she can hang out with people like that, and she doesn’t give a hoot about football or basketball games (she says “That’s too much people’ing for me!”).
One thing I’m curious about is what’s nearby campus. I’ll let you know what we find out in October!
I believe that, but we were so far from a number where you might get some need based aid at her most expensive school that I don’t think it’s worth my time to do more net price calculators.
C26 is in at ASU - safety and fairly low down on the list, but it’s still an admit for their first choice major! I’m not sure when they finalize funding - wondering if I should spend the $ to send their SAT score, which bumps up the merit according to their online merit calculator. We likely won’t hear from most others until mid-late January, other than UIC which has a 15 Dec decision date for EA (and as of now they’d rather go there).
Edit: app was submitted over the weekend so pretty quick turnaround, in case anyone was wondering.
On commuter schools. I think it can depend on the school, dorms and course. I went to a commuter college - I’d guess that less than 1000 out of the 7000 or so undergrads were in dorms -but boy, they were close knit and seemed to have a lot more fun than the rest of us! It has been a worry of mine about UIC, but according to Reddit it’s less of an issue for architecture students because everyone is in studio late etc and they apparently hang out a lot together too. I’m guessing ideally one would want to visit over a weekend in term time to see how dead or not the campus is over the weekends.
Following up on this, D26 had a great conversation with her college counselor on this. As of now, D26 will not apply ED to any of them. She will apply early action to the very likely school, which her counselor says will almost certainly offer her significant merit aid. She will then apply regular decision to the other two (though, she could become so excited about the EA one by then that she decides to just go with it). Counselor thinks she has a good shot at getting into both of the others in regular admissions, and then she can assess options with way more information in the spring. She’ll also apply to a few other schools early action. The counselor said some schools bias a lot of their merit aid toward Early Action, so it’s good to apply early action to any schools you can.
Just a reminder to those who have kids scheduling interviews over the next few months- check the time zones! My kiddo was all set for her first interview this week (even wore a nice polo instead of a Tshirt for the zoom) and realized that the school was in central time- somehow the calendar invite didn’t reflect that, or she missed it. Life lesson, but she was pretty upset, especially because the school’s interview slots are all currently filled and she’ll have to wait to reschedule. I assured her that this happens all the time, even to adults.
) so has not been that big of a deal.
Hope you find a lot that is still within budget. The SAI are really unrealistic.